Noah and Ava: 2011

Noah playing piano

Noah loved playing piano with Uncle David when we were in Colorado so it only fits that he would want to make his home when we got home. Of course, he does have two electronic ones to choose from but I personally like this one the best! ;)

And thanks to John K for introducing me to Mika so many years ago!

What's in a name?

Noah seems to refuse to call Ava by her name, except when we ask him to say something directly to her, i.e. "Noah, say 'thank you Ava.'"

If he's really upset he says "NO ZaZa!"
If she's calling him or they are just playing, he says "Coming Nana!"
If he wants her to do something, he says "Sit here Noah!"

She doesn't seem to mind at all. She'll answer to all four options from him.

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Ava has decided that Santa does not exist. I am somewhat heartbroken as I think this is way to young of an age for Santa to be out of the picture! Here's how our conversation went yesterday:

Me: Ava, is Santa going to come to our house?
Ava: No. No Santa! Auntie coming?
Me: No, sweetie, Auntie isn't coming for Christmas. Is Santa coming?
Ava: No Santa! Royeee coming?

I think I made a little headway today when I explained that Santa brings toys. So now she at least says "Santa coming with toys?" but if I ask her anything about Santa, the responses is still "No Santa!"

I'll try to post some pictures later but for now... nap time!!!

Funny things twins do... or at least that Noah & Ava do

They have started gathering some very funny habits, some of which we are not condoning but that doesn't mean that they aren't funny!

1. Since Ava is potty trained and Noah is still in training, they spend a lot of time on the potties together. Whenever they go #2, the other one gets up, looks at their sibling's potty full of #2 and goes "Wow! Wow!" If only we all got that kind of encouragement every time we went potty!

2. Ava is definitely in charge around here. If I ask Noah to come to me, he doesn't even pretend to have heard me. If Ava says "come here Noah" he says ok and goes running. Thanks buddy.

3. We are obsessed with bugs. Noah is a great bug tracker and Ava is a great bug screamer. Anytime there is a bug, Ava stands on a pile of books or on the chair and yells "bug" and Noah walks around clapping his hands after the bug (Appa's killed a few this way but Noah doesn't seem to understand that you have to catch the bug to kill it...). On another bug note (and no, we don't have an infestation or anything), Nathan killed a bug the other day and said it went night night so Ava asked if she could give it a "boh boh" or kiss before it went night night. I thought you were scared of bugs???

4. They love helping each other get dressed. If Ava is running around naked, Noah finds her "big girl undies" and holds them out for her to step into. It has yet to work.

Of course these are the funny moments, which in the blink of an eye turn into a yelling, hair pulling, biting wrestling match but we'll take what we can get.

We posted more pics on Flickr and they are darn cute, if I do say so myself.

October: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157627928828333/
November: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157628134009072/

Here's a sampling of the great pictures that Auntie Laura took:

Quick update

It's been a busy couple of months (for you too, I'm sure) so we are behind on blogging. We just spent three weeks in Colorado which was wonderful, apart from the rude awakening that I received on Monday that I have to feed them lunch and entertain them during the day and attempt to take them potty on time each and every time. We got used to grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends taking over these duties, well, at least I did. So, thank you to everyone who lent a helping hand!

Here are some pics, and as always, there are more on Flickr if you care to peruse: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157627928828333/

They had awesome Halloween costumes but I think the good pics are on Laura's camera so I'll post those next week!

Hanging with Jane

Every now and then we get a good celebrity sighting in New York. We've seen Molly Shannon, Bob Sagat, Mike Myers, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russel, Jake Gylinhall, Julia Styles and a few others but it isn't very often that we get approached by one! Today we were walking with the kids with their monkey backpacks and Jane Goodall and her photographer asked if they could take our picture! Of course we said yes and with any luck, we'll be in Spanish Vogue next month! :) She's in town promoting her movie, Jane's Journey: http://nymag.com/listings/movie/janes-journey/

And the results are in...

Fortunately a loss of tree leaves and sleep seem to be the only damage on our block.

Preparing for Irene

For those of you who are concerned, we are ready for the hurricane. We have lots of water, food, batteries, etc. We're staying put because of all of our evac options, we still appear to be better off at home and we aren't in a zone that they would ask to evac anyways. If we lose internet this weekend, my sister will update Facebook and the blog with any updates that we can get to her. That being said, we are preparing for the worst but expecting the best. Usually when there is this big of a hype, it ends up not being a big deal. Let's hope for that!

Now that's out of the way, here are some pics from the last few weeks.

First, we went to New Haven to meet our friends the Stroups & the Pohlenzs. We didn't have much time for pictures but we had a lot of fun. (The extra kid is Jonas, Seth's son).

We also went to Ellen & Jack's house in NJ. Ellen and my mom grew up together and they have been so good to us. It was great to see them and their daughter, Christine. The kids loved the open space & Forrest was acting like a puppy again!

There are TONS more pictures on our Flickr. Including pics with Uncle T'Errance and fun pics with bubbles and more that I was going to add but the internet is super slow right now so if you want to see more, you can check out the pics at:

July: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157627246986828/
August: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157627388033192/

Fourth of July

I know that it's almost the end of July but we had a great 4th. YiaYia sent some awesome pinwheels and outfits so we went to the zoo to show off. They love their shades from Uncle Roy (or "Unkul Royee" as Ava would say) and they wore them all the way to the park.

Eat your peas!

Yesterday Noah and Ava ate an entire bag of peas! I was only going to give them a handful each but they kept asking for more! I figured that I would indulge them and just kept on giving them peas. Now, for those of you who haven't seen a toddler eat, that doesn't mean that they actually ate an entire bag. There were of course those lost to their desire to make sure the dog is well fed, those that were tucked away for safe keeping under their bums, and of course, the stray pea who just happened to wander into Noah's ear canal.

No... he wouldn't... look at that face!

Oh yes he would!

At least I can add pea removal skills to my resume!

Those crazy kids!

On a happy note, Noah and Ava have been cracking me up lately. Here are just a few of their antics:

I tied Ava's hair up yesterday and Noah insisted that I tie his up as well. I figured I'd let him wear it for as long as he wanted. So we went to the grocery store where the cashier commented about how beautiful my two girls are. He later lathered up his whale spout with banana which made for a rockin mohawk when I took the hair tie out.

I took Ava on a "date" a couple weeks back and Appa and Noah stayed home and hung out. I put her in the carrier and her weight kept pulling down my shirt so I kept pulling it up. Now anytime I wear a remotely low cut shirt (you all know how provocative my wardrobe is), Ava reaches up, pulls my shirt up and holds it together. Thanks Ava!

They are now clear on the "no biting" idea but now everything that hurts them is a bite. So one of them bonks their head, all I hear from both of them is biiiiite! but I can't find a single bite mark.

They are quickly developing their vocabulary in their own twins language. Ava just told Noah "bee bo be ba" and he came and sat down next to her. If only I could crack the code!

Noah decided that Ava should give him a piggy back ride. It went about as well as you'd expect:

Ava is quite the little climber:

They are not fans of club soda!

They love running around Appa's office though!

Growing pains

I apologize in advance for the sappy post. I never thought I would be a sappy parent. I used to laugh at those TV shows where parents uncover a random box of clothing that the kid has long since outgrown and they proceed to tear up as they reminisce about how little their obnoxious teenager used to be. Seriously, who does that? Well, apparently I do. I mean, they clearly aren't obnoxious teenagers (yet) but they are growing up so fast! We just sold their infant car seats and while I was just cursing the amount of space they were taking up in our ever so tiny apartment, watching the new dad walk away with our car seats made me a little sad. I also must admit that I haven't parted with a single item of clothing since they've been born. Yes, in a one bedroom apartment with little to no space to spare, I am hoarding their baby stuff. I also have rattles they never played with, shoes they never wore, blankets that they never slept under. Why, you may ask, would I store all this useless stuff? No, I'm not planning on having more kids anytime soon. No, I am not going to create a giant pop-up scrapbook to show them when they graduate college. Honestly, I have no idea why. All I know is that I want my car seats back! Or perhaps I want my babies to still fit in infant car seats, not the giant toddler ones. Or perhaps motherhood is making me go bonkers. In any case, they are growing up fast and while I am relieved that they now sleep through the night, feed themselves and can kinda play on their own, I know that by the time they are embarrassed to be seen with me, I will truly miss having cuddly adorable babies.

Firsts

This month Noah and Ava had their first board meeting:

Ava got her first (and hopefully her last!) black eye:

Noah saw sea lions swimming for the first time:

It's been a good couple of weeks!

And Happy Appa's Day to the best Appa in the whole world! He also takes the prize of silliest! ;)

18 Month check ups

So we missed our appointment and then couldn't get in till they were 19 months, but close enough right? They are both doing well and growing along their growth curves. Here are some "stats" for both of them:

Ava can say about 30-35 words (the most common aside from people names are dog, apple, elmo, book, nana (banana), saja (lion), waz that, wiggle wiggle (from a book), more and milk). She is climbing and starting to run. She loves reading and thinks her brother is hilarious! She seems to love men - case in point, I'm sure if she could talk well enough, she would have asked Uncle Roy to marry her by now. She is not such a good sharer but is working on "trading" with Noah and with us. Did I mention that she loves reading? Because she really does! She loves accessories. Sometimes it's a hat or a scarf, sometimes it's pants on her head but either way she loves it! She gives amazing hugs, loves to give kisses and wants to give everyone a fist bump.

Noah says about 30 words, the most common other than people's names are more, nana!!!, dog, owie, no/no/no/no/no!, book, ball, cheese, ninety-nine. He loves to throw things and can get some distance most of the time. He also loves to kick the soccer ball - he even pulled it back with his foot a few times last week so we're going to start dribbling practice soon. :) He also climbs and "runs" and has been rearranging toys a lot lately. He and Ava definitely have a "twin language" and he loves making her laugh and has no problem giving her all of his food and toys... most of the time! He is very curious about how things work and people constantly point out to us that he "studies" things. He frequently gets very important phone calls that necessitate him pacing around the playzone while he's on the phone.

Over the last year, we've been dealing with some health stuff with Noah. In July of last year, he got sick with a virus and we did some blood work to see what was going on - mostly so we could be prepared for when Ava caught it. What we found is that Noah's white blood count is not what it should be. His neutrophils (the white blood cells that fight bacteria) are really low. Most kids have at least 1500, even on the worst of days. Noah had 0 as of his last count. That means that he's really susceptible to bacteria so anytime he gets a fever over 101, we have to bring him to the Dr or the ER, whichever is available for blood tests and antibiotics, even if we're pretty sure it's nothing. When he gets sick his body mounts a good response and increases his neutrophil count which is a great sign and most likely means that when he got that first virus, his body created antibodies that kill off the neutrophils - we are still waiting for tests to confirm but that is the most common explanation. He's not "sick" and it's something that he'll out grow in a couple of years but for now, we have to be extra cautious. Overall, we are very fortunate that it isn't something more serious and we have great doctors but it's still stressful - no matter how careful we are, kids just get sick sometimes. We'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers when you think of us - but not your worries because we know he's gonna be just fine!

It's been a great 19 months so far!

Family portraits

So I convince our family that we needed to do new family portraits because our last full family picture has an ex-boyfriend in it, and as Grandma said, "that's just tacky!" Here are a few of the pics. The rest are on the flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25323000@N02/sets/72157626677720255/